02/05/2008

From the Feuilletons

From the Feuilletons is a weekly overview of what's been happening in the German-language cultural pages and appears every Friday at 3 pm. CET.. Here a key to the German newspapers.

The new Bayreuth

88-year-old Wolfgang Wagner, director of the Richard Wagner Festspiele in Bayreuth since 1951, announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down and handing over the reins jointly to his daughters Katharina Wagner (29) and Eva Wagner-Pasquier (63). He has been running the festival single-handedly since the death of his brother Wieland in 1966 and the issue of his successor has been hotly disputed. Initially he planned to hand over artistic control to his wife, then to his daughter Katharina and he recently he managed to put Nike Wagner (63), his brother's daughter, firmly out of the running.

For Julia Spinola in the FAZ, "the sense of relief that inevitably sets in at this long-awaited moment in the Wagner world, cannot mask the fact that the resignation of Richard Wagner's grandson is nothing more than a chess move in a deeply corrupt game. It was opened by the Secretary of State for Culture, Bernd Neumann, and Bavarian Culture Minister, Thomas Goppel, who promised old Wolfgang that his wishes would be fulfilled: the decision for this double leadership guarantees that only Wolfgang Wagner's blood will flow into the future. The family branch of Wolfgang's brother Wieland, the protagonist of the 'new Bayreuth' aesthetic liberation process which followed the undesirable involvement of the Festspiele with the Nazi elite, has been completely knocked out of the game."

Reinhard J. Brembeck of the SZ is delighted by the decision and looks beyond Nike Wagner as the representative of "outdated" directorial concepts, optimistically into the future. "This solution is not only acceptable to the various fractions on the founding board (Federal Government, Bavaria, Bayreuth, Friends of the Festspiele, the Wagner family) but it is also artistically convincing. ... Only at first glance does it seem dynastically and politically motivated. The decision, which brings together an opera expert (Eva) and an impassioned theatre director (Katharina), marks a new orientation in the opera business which can be felt all over Germany."

Christine Lemke-Matwey of the Tagesspiegel is less sentimental. "Business stays in the family for the time being. But the two girls will have to do quite some work on their images. Eva, the cultural manager, has always worked away in the background and attracted little attention, and Katharina, the young director may be mouthy, quick-witted and incredibly deep voiced, but thatÃ¢â¬â¢s about all so far. Let's not forget the third party in the group, the conductor Christian Thielemann who has always held the stirrups for little Kathi, and without whom she would never have got where she is today..."

Other stories this week

Die Welt, 02.05.2008

Pianist Alfred Brendel is on his farewell tour. Manuel Brug asks why he is so loved by his audiences. "Brendel is neither good looking or sexy, but he is clever and whimsical. Brendel has never been a rock-solid technician let alone a steaming virtuoso. His choice of repertoire is sparse and has shrunk still further in recent years. He is sturdy Ã¢â¬â aside from the coughing in the concert hall Ã¢â¬â rarely ill and free of airs and graces. This pianist is so far away from every fashion and unpretentious to the point of pretentiousness that, had marketing and PR campaigns held the same sway decades ago as they do now, one might think this was his schtick or his branding. "

Die Welt, 26.04.2008

At the "National Culture Revisited" symposium organised by the Goethe Institute to question the role of national cultural work in an increasingly globalised society, journalistMely Kiyak gave a speech in which she criticised the invisibility of immigrants in contemporary German culture. "The painters of the New Leipzig School paint cities and people how they see them. strange I think to myself, they didn't see us in the museum. I watch modern adaptations of the classics in the theatre and look closely to see if I can spot a Turkish fruit and veg shop somewhere in the stage design, but no. I read theatre magazines which call for a new realism in the theatre, I read book reviews that say the majority of new novels are not doing enough, that young authors are only describing their own little world. I can only agree."

From the blogs, 26.04.2008

In irights.com Robert A. Gerhring comments on the open letter from the German Music Association which was signed by the bulk of Germany's well-meaning artists (sic) and which appeared in full-page ads in three major papers (more here). The artists are demanding tight surveillance of internetuse and blocked access for illegal downloaders. "At the beginning of April the European parliament overruled the implementation of these very measures. A narrow parliamentary majority backed a proposal which called upon member states to abandon the idea of blocking internet access. But there is no mention of this in the open letter to the German Chancellor."

Berliner Kurier, 26.04.2008

A few weeks ago the dead body of Russian artist Anna Mikalchuk was found in the Spree. The police assumed it was a suicide. Mikalchuk moved to Berlin last year, together with her husband the philosopher Michael Ryklin Ã¢â¬â almost certainly to escape Putinism. Ryklin had described in a book how an exhibition organised by Mikalchuk in Moscow was shut down by the Church with the brutal support of Putin's henchmen (more here). Research carried out by the tabloid paper Berliner Kurier has thrown the suicide theory into doubt. It is strongly critical of the police, which waited several days before carrying out an autopsy on Milkalchuk's body. "The corpse was delivered to the forensic medical department but was only examined after a number of other cases had been attended to. A devastating decision. As the Kurier discovered, the body had been weighed down with stones Ã¢â¬â but even this did not alert the police. They obviously assumed that the dissident had weighted herself with stones before jumping into the Spree."

The Berlin police force has been accused of not sufficiently following through sufficiently on their investigations. "'Our investigations have revealed nothing to suggest criminal activity,' police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said one day later. But the case is still open," according to the Berliner Zeitung on 28.04.2008

Frankfurter Rundschau, 29.04.2008

SociologistPeter Wagnerdraws a grim conclusion from the Italian elections. In his view, the Italians voted for a corrupt government because they are corrupt themselves. After all the Prodi government had made considerable headway in the battle against tax fraud and bureaucracy. "But the government failed to see how many of its citizens had benefited from the chaos in the country and as such, that its success in combating corruption would not be convert into votes. ... Tax fraudsters, book fiddlers, profiteers from lack of transparency in the legal system and xenophobes had vested interestes in seeing the government fall. But many of them lacked the courage to admit this publicly before the elections and only dared confess their sins in the safety of the polling booth."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29.04.2008

Christian Jostman was at the Balkan Fever Festival in Vienna and puts paid to a few prejudices: "The authentic-ethnicity label that has always been stuck on the music of South East Europe is a personal bugbear of Richard Shuberth, the festival's initiator. 'The Balkans are sophisticated,' he says. And he is borne out by Karandila and the other bands featured, from Roma music stars like Taraf de Haidouks (listen) to the Armenian oud player Haig Yazdjian (listen). There is an entire musical sub-continent to discover here, where Thrace borders on Louisiana, in hearing distance of Arabia and Cuba. And in the middle lies Vienna."

Saturday 11 - 17 December, 2010

A clutch of German newspapers launch an appeal against the criminalisation of Wikileaks. Vera Lengsfeld remembers GDR dissident Jürgen Fuchs and how he met death in his cell. All the papers were bowled over Xavier Beauvois' film "Of Gods and Men." The FR enjoys a joke but not a picnic at a staging of Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" in Berlin. Gustav Seibt provides a lurid description of Napoleonic soap in the SZ. German-Turkish Dogan Akhanli author explains what it feels like to be Josef K. read more

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 December

Colombian writer Hector Abad defends Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa against European Latin-America romantics. Wikileaks dissident Daniel Domscheit-Berg criticises the new publication policy of his former employer. The Sprengel Museum has put on a show of child nudes by die Brücke artists. The SZ takes a walk through the Internet woods with FAZ prophet of doom Frank Schirrmacher. The FAZ is troubled by Christian Thielemann's unstable tempo in the Beethoven cycle. And the FR meets China Free Press publisher, Bao Pu.read more

Saturday 27 November - Friday 3 December

Danish author Frederik Stjernfelt explains how the Left got its culturist ideas. Slavenka Draculic writes about censoring Angelina Jolie who wanted to make a film in Bosnia. Daniel Cohn-Bendit talksÃÂ ÃÂ about his friendship, falling out and reconciliation with Jean-Luc Godard. Wikileaks has caused an embarrassed silence in the Arab world, where not even al-Jazeera reported on the what the sheiks really think. Alan Posener calls for the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden to be shut down.read more

Saturday 20 - Friday 26 November, 2010

The theatre event of the week came in a twin pack: Roland Schimmelpfennig's new play, a post-colonial "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" opened at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and the Thalia in Hamburg. The anarchist pamphlet "The Coming Insurrection" has at last been translated into German and has ignited the revolutionary sympathies of at least two leading German broadsheets, the FAZ and the SZ. But the taz, Germany's left-wing daily, says the pamphlet is strongly right-wing. What's left and right anyway? came the reply.read more

Saturday 13 - Friday 19 November, 2010

Dieter Schlesak levels grave accusations against his former friend and colleague, Oskar Pastior, who spied on him for the Securitate. Banat-Swabian author and vice chairman of the Oskar Pastior Foundation, Ernest Wichner, turns on Schlesak for spreading malicious rumours. Die Zeit portrays the Berlin rapper Harris, and the moment he knew he was German. Dutch author Cees Nooteboom meditates on the near lust for physical torture in the paintings of Francisco de Zurburan. An exhibition in Mannheim displays the dream house photography of Julius Schulman.read more

Saturday 6 - Friday 12 November, 2010

The NZZ asks why banks invest in art. The FAZ gawps at the unnatural stack of stomach muscles in Michelangelo's drawings. The taz witnesses a giant step for the "Yugo palaver". Bernard-Henri Levy describes Sakineh Ashtiani's impending execution as a test for Iran and the west.Journalist Michael Anti talks about the healthy relationship between the net and the Chinese media. Literary academic Helmut Lethen describes how Ernst Jünger stripped the worker of all organic substances.read more

Saturday 30 October - Friday 5 November, 2010

Now that German TV has just beatifiedPope Pius XII, Rolf Hochmuth tells die Welt where he got the idea for his play "The Deputy". The FR celebrates Elfriede Jelinek's "brilliantly malicious" farce about the collapse of the Cologne City Archive. "Carlos" director Olivier Assayas makes it clear that the revolutionary subject is a figment of the imagination. The SZ returns from the Shanghai Expo with a cloying after-taste of sweet 'n' sour. And historian Wang Hui tells the NZZ that China's intellectuals have plenty of freedom to pose critical questions.read more

Saturday 23 - Friday 29 October, 2010

Author Doron Rabinovici protests against the concessions of moderate Austrian politicians to the FPÖ: recently in Vienna, children were sent back to Kosovo at gunpoint. Ian McEwan wonders why major German novelists didn't mention the Wall. The NZZ looks through the Priz Goncourt shortlist and finds plenty of writers with more bite than Houellebecq. The FAZ outs two of Germany's leading journalists who fiercely guarded the German Foreign Ministry's Nazi past. Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt analyse the symptoms of culturalism, left and right. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht demonstratively yawns at German debate.read more

Saturday 16 - Friday 22 October, 2010

A new book chronicles the revolt of revolting "third persons" at Suhrkamp publishers in the wild days of 1968. Necla Kelek is appalled by the speech of the very Christian Christian Wulff, the German president, in Turkey. The taz met a new faction of hardcore Palestinians who are fighting for separate sex hairdressing in Gaza. Sinologist Andreas Schlieker reports on the new Chinese willingness to restructure the heart. And the Cologne band Erdmöbel celebrate the famous halo around the frying pan.read more

Saturday 9 - Friday 15 October, 2010

The FR laps up the muscular male bodies and bellies at the Michelangelo exhibition in the Viennese Albertina. The same paper is outraged by the cowardice of the Berlin exhibition "Hitler and the Germans". Mario Vargas-Llosa remembers a bad line from Sweden. Theologist Friedrich Wilhelm Graf makes it very clear that Western values are not Judaeo-Christian values. The Achse des Guten is annoyed by the attempts of the mainstream media to dismiss Mario Vargas-Llosa. The NZZ celebrates the tireless self-demolition of Polish writer and satirist Slawomir Mrozek.read more

Saturday 2 - Friday 8 October, 2010

Nigerian writer Niyi Osundare explains why his country has become uninhabitable. German Book Prize winner Melinda Nadj Abonji says Switzerland only pretends to be liberal. German author Monika Maron is not surethat Islam really does belong to Germany. Russian writer Oleg Yuriev explains the disastrous effects of postmodernism on the Petersburg Hermitage. Argentinian author Martin Caparros describes how the Kirchners have co-opted the country's revolutionary history. And publisher Damian Tabarovsky explains why 2001 was such an explosively creative year for Argentina.read more

Saturday 25 September - Friday 1 October

Three East German theatre directors talk about the trauma of reunification. In the FAZ, Thilo Sarrazin denies accusations that his book propagates eugenics: "I am interested in the interplay of nature and nurture." Polemics are being drowned out by blaring lullabies, author Thea Dorn despairs. Author Iris Radisch is dismayed by the state of the German novel - too much idle chatter, not enough literary clout. Der Spiegel posts its interview with the German WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Schmitt. And Vaclav Havel's appeal to award the Nobel prize to Liu Xiabobo has the Chinese authorities pulling out their hair.read more

Saturday 18 - Friday 24 September, 2010

Herta Müller's response to the news that poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant was one of overwhelming grief: "When he returned home from the gulag he was everybody's game." Theatre director Luk Perceval talks about the veiled depression in his theatre. Cartoonist Molly Norris has disappeared after receiving death threats for her "Everybody Draw Mohammed" campaign. The Berliner Zeitung approves of the mellowing in Pierre Boulez' music. And Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, allowed to leave China for the first time, explains why schnapps is his most important writing tool.read more

Saturday 10 - Friday 17 September, 2010

The poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant, the historian Stefan Sienerth has discovered. Biologist Veronika Lipphardt dismisses Thilo Sarrazin'sincendiary intelligence theories as a load of codswallop. A number of prominent Muslim intellectuals in Germany have written an open letter to President Christian Wulff, calling for him to "make a stand for a democratic culture based on mutual respect." And a Shell study has revealed that Germany's youth aspire to be just like their parents.read more

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 September, 2010

Thilo Sarrazin has buckled under the stress of the past two weeks and resigned from the board of the Central Bank. His book, "Germany is abolishing itself", however, continues to keep Germany locked in a debate about education and immigration and intelligence. Also this week, Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has been awarded the M100 prize for defending freedom of opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech at the award ceremony: "The secret of freedom is courage". The FAZ interviewed Westergaard, who expressed his disappointment that the only people who had shown him no support were those of his own class. read more